


RATTLE YOUR WALLS

by archangelmike



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Multi, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, idk whats gonna happen!, this will probably change!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-03 20:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archangelmike/pseuds/archangelmike
Summary: 2015, thought Toby Ziegler, who had served at the pleasure of an American president for two terms, who had gotten the ride of his life and a 6-year prison sentence in return. What a world.But then again, he had also seen 1975.





	1. drenched to the bone

**Author's Note:**

> this started as a joke but it's now my quixotic quest to explore toby ziegler's past and present as the leftest-leaning formerly-radical member of the bartlet staff, crack open the elite bush-era democrat fantasy that was the west wing, and follow my most beloved and compelling character as he reflects on his place in america 2016. 
> 
> there will be time jumps back and forth between 2016 toby and toby in his 20's. I'm going to try to indicate them narratively but if i start confusing folks, i'll add title cards with dates at the top of the chapters. titles will be borrowed from a plethora of folk revival lyrics cos Mood but special thanks to bob dylan.
> 
> if youre a very niche someone who loved the west wing for the pulsing dialogue, the gripping characters, the Warm Gooey Center, everything except the actual political messages and occasional bad morality lessons, this is DEFINITELY for you! updates will be sporadic and variant in length, not expecting a lot of viewership but please enjoy and leave feedback/kudos/whatever pleases you! 
> 
> im out here writing west wing fanfiction in 2018! thank you!!!

“Andy, they don’t need a double mitzvah to know they’re Jewish. They’re _Zieglers_ for God’s sake.”

The scent of Toby’s cigar lingered boldly in the damp fall air. He watched the smoke spill over his balcony rail and blanket the New York City traffic below, imagining for a moment it was an anaesthetic gas that would silence the street just long enough for him to finish a phone call. Growing up in Brooklyn, he never used to mind the noise. His old corner of Washington DC had a dignity that spoiled him.

“I know, you took ‘em to Hebrew school for a couple years when they were little, it was nice of you and you did a good job but they don’t _care_ anymore, don’t make them- Listen, y-... No, it’s not because I don’t want to come to Washington, I come to Washington all the time.” He rubbed his cheeks. “Okay. Well why did you call me if you knew you had a meeting? Andy. Andy? Hello?”

He put a hand on his hip. _Call Ended._ No kidding.

Toby didn’t know why he had argued; Andy hadn’t asked his opinion on Huck and Molly having a joint bar and bat mitzvah, she’d told him it was happening when they turned 13 in May and that he was to be there in every capacity. She said they cared about their heritage, that they wanted the option to be full members of a Jewish community. He had to laugh at that one -- at the synagogue he grew up in, a full-blooded Jewish father wasn’t enough to get you through the door if you brought your shiksa mother with you. Now you had quarter Jews and sixteenth Jews lining up for their Birthright trips with a fraction of what his kids could claim.

He leaned back against the balcony and aligned his TV remote precisely with the space he left in the glass sliding door. News station after news station -- CNN, CSPAN, NBC, Fox (when he really felt the need to stare into the void) -- had been trickling election news to the public in a way he hadn’t seen since… Possibly ever. The spectacle seemed unparalleled. As the lesser candidates dropped off their parties’ backs like dead parasites, it seemed more and more obvious that those who survived were appealing to different people than the ones who elected Barack Obama or Matt Santos.

Or, as fewer would say, those who elected Jed Bartlet.

Some of Toby’s colleagues in the Mass Comm department at Columbia almost seemed to be _enjoying_ the sense of a world gone mad, of unpredictable politics. Toby had held those reins. He had felt them slip in his hands, known the terror, imagined what breaking the neck of the Democratic party in an attempt to win the race would feel like. It wasn’t _fun._ It was terrifying, even when the stakes weren’t so high as Election 2016. He shook his head and took another puff, thinking of Josh Lyman, who really did think that shit was fun.

People were already protesting this absurd Republican candidate. He was a New York fixture, a common caricature of wealth. It took him a little by surprise to see how quickly it had escalated. He squinted through the glass. The news camera focused on a young man, dark hair, old eyes, a layer of stubble working out a weak chin. Toby paused the TV to read the closed captions.

“WHY DID YOU COME ALL THE WAY TO BOULDER IN THE COLD, THE RAIN... WHAT ARE YOU HERE TO SAY?”

“AMERICA… WAS NEVER GREAT. AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT.”

2015, thought Toby Ziegler, who had served at the pleasure of an American president for two terms, who had gotten the ride of his life and a 6-year prison sentence in return. What a world.

But then again, he had also seen 1975.

_America was never great._

He frowned at the young man, chewed his cheek, stubbed out his cigar, and turned the TV off.


	2. bookends p1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had been performing that ill-defined ritual in variations -- on time, on intervals, on clothing removed -- for several years now. His favorite poet was his friend, and added to his minute details of her were the age-silked skin under her jaw, lips stained with Chianti, and her honest, stimulating dialogue simmering away into sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's part 1 of a 2 (or 3?) part chapter that i broke up for the sake of updating sooner! toby and tabatha toke up. i add the fact that tabatha's name doesnt have an i in it to my list of reasons to fight sorkin with my fists. some thematic seeds are planted, some ribald comments are made, and toby is a little bit of a tool for a second. i have yet to let toby say fuck, but don't worry -- it will happen soon.
> 
> thanks to anybody who takes a peek at this! kudos and comments are beloved!

Tabatha Fortis's brownstone in Greenwich Village made Toby's apartment on East 33rd feel like a morgue chamber. It wasn’t about space, Toby liked to keep it small. It was enough for him and the kids when they came to spend their New York summers, and the location was perfect: within walking distance of the only decent kishke in Manhattan and far enough from work that he could write the good parts of his lecture on the train. What Tabatha’s house had was vibrancy. It was warm, colorful, full of natural light and soulful smells, whether it was food or incense or something else burning. Toby could decorate his house all he wanted -- it just ended up looking like the exceptional office of someone who loved the Yankees. With her gripping photojournalism prints, her brownish-orangish palette and her haphazard odds and ends that proved she lived there, Tabatha put herself on the walls with the kind of transparency only a very generous poet could pull off.

He saw her peek out at him from between curtains before she opened the door.

“Hi! Come in, come in.”

“...Hi.” He smiled as he watched her hurry away from him, following her to her kitchen from a distance. The house smelled like baked goods and…  _ Baked _ goods. He found her waving off a tray of brownies. “How’s that medical card treating you?”

“You’re about to find out.” 

“Tab, that’s illegal, don’t they tell you that in the cannabis patient handbook?”

“Oh sure. Are you a cop?”

“Please. I’m not even a federal employee anymore.”

“Then get over here.”

It had been just over a decade since Toby first met Tabatha before she was honored by the White House, and he had been grateful to fully witness the U.S. Poet Laureate for just a few scattered minutes that day. He was someone who got wrapped up in other people very privately, clinging to the minutiae of intimate encounters. If you asked Andy, it sometimes made him miss the big picture -- the opposite of his political MO, a style of compartmentalization. For years, Tabatha Fortis was a crossed-off article on a list, the trickle of a fountain on the Georgetown campus, a phone call, a canopy of blond hair, ten words:  _ “Yeah, you’re cute... And I love the way you write.”  _

Then he got fired. His colleagues, never to look at him the same, began their lives after Bartlet. Will Bailey had called him on something that final year -- he didn’t have that life after Bartlet mapped out in his mind, and it hadn’t just ended, he had been cut loose. Spending that life with Andy as a husband and live-in father to the twins was definitively off the table. Too soon after the leak, Washington showed him its cold, marble back. Andy herself had given him her blessing to go home.  _ Home  _ home, like CJ had gone back to California. 

It was he who reached out to Tabatha, nothing left to lose. He didn’t know if she was well, destitute, married, any of the usual outcomes for poets. He tracked down her agent. He got her number. He called her and told her what CJ had said the morning before they met --  _ “You’ve got a touch of the poet”  _ \-- and that she had been absolutely right. She invited him over, and after four coffee table books and three bottles of wine, she gave him a kiss and sent him home in a cab. They had been performing that ill-defined ritual in variations -- on time, on intervals, on clothing removed -- for several years now. His favorite poet was his friend, and added to his minute details of her were the age-silked skin under her jaw, lips stained with Chianti, and her honest, stimulating dialogue simmering away into sighs. 

But his thoughts tonight were divided. “You seen the news lately?” 

“Trying my best not to.” 

“Seriously, it’s outta hand-” She held a brownie to his mouth and a hand under his chin for him to take a bite. “Mm. It’s outta hand, everyone in my department still thinks it’s a joke. It’s not a joke and if the Democrats had any sense at all they’d get him off the goddamn news.”

“Yeah, no shit. How’s the brownie?”

“...This actually has pot in it.”

“You’re really leaning into the obvious tonight.”

“I thought you were joking!”

“I also smoked a little bowl a couple hours before you got here. Guess what I was doing before that?”

He sighed. “Watching the news.”

“There’s the smart guy,” she said, walking away with the rest of his brownie.

Toby snatched another and followed her into the living room. Paraphernalia was strewn across her glass coffee table next to a face-down remote control. Tabatha had gotten a medical prescription for cannabis to treat generalized anxiety disorder, chronic depression and post-traumatic stress. She was into all the healthy coping mechanisms -- therapy, exercise, meditation -- but she just couldn’t bring herself to pop a pill. 

“I think it’s very funny,” he said as he sat, grabbing the remote. “Do you wanna hear something funny?”

“Yeah.” She sat next to him, leaned forward, and began rolling a joint.

“I think there’s sort of a bell curve to getting weed. It’s easy when you’re young and it’s easy when you’re old, but there’s this great big. Fissure in between. I wasn’t able to score a gram if I offered to suck a dick between ages 30 to 45 and now look. You get it from a doctor and I get it for free.”

“Toby.”

“What.”

“Did you say ‘suck a dick’?”

He pressed a fist to his mouth.

She burst out laughing. “What is  _ wrong  _ with you, you had an  _ edible  _ two  _ seconds  _ ago!”

“I dunno! Placebo. Contact high. Sue me!”

“God.” 

As she lit her joint, Toby scanned the room for his other favorite piece of Tabatha apocrypha -- drafted poems, yellow pad and looseleaf, not quite rejected enough to make it to the trash can. He was disturbed to find none. “You’re not writing.”

“Oh I’m writing. I’m writing all the time. The thing is, it sucks; not… Leave it lying around until I decide it’s actually okay sucks, it’s just plain bad.”

“How is that possible?”

“You’re very sweet but let’s skip the part where you act like a fan. You know the difference between a good speech and a bad speech, because your standards for yourself are through the roof.”

“That was true when I was writing speeches.”

“You were way less of a pain then, you were still trying to impress me. I never should’ve let you touch my boobs.”

“Anyway,” he plucked the joint from her hand, “when I was writing bad speeches, I was tired. Are you sleeping?”

“Constantly.”

“Mm.”

“Yeah. If I say ‘emotional labor,’ will you roll your eyes?”

“Maybe. What’s that?”

“Toby… It’s what you performed for Jed Bartlet every day of your life for five years.”

“That’s  _ President  _ Bartlet. And I dunno what that’s supposed to mean.”

“It’s part of a job, or even a relationship, where you’re expected to manufacture your emotions to suit the needs of the task at hand. It’s very taxing on your mind and body and spirit. Frankly it’s dehumanizing.”

“What is this, some kinda Marxist spin on sucking it up and getting shit done?”

“You know what, yeah. And it’s real. And it’s gotten to the point where it’s emotionally laborious for me to promote myself as an artist in a society that I don’t want making money off of me, so I’m constantly exhausted and my poetry sucks. And  _ President  _ Bartlet had you regulating your beliefs -- just like he did mine! -- to the point where you were just expected to shut up unless he was feeling particularly progressive that day. That’s the impression you’ve given me. You’re a man who was successfully shut up.”

“That’s- You know what, just don’t bring up the President, okay? You have no idea what went on in that White House, the conversations that we had, and you will never know, so don’t throw out some theory and talk about it like you understand.”

“Oh, suck a dick, Toby.”

“We’re two for two on dick sucking tonight, that’s a first.”

“Are you gonna smoke that or should I take it back.”

Toby looked her in the eye and took a hit, counting five seconds before letting the smoke fall from his mouth and placing the joint back on a tray. From the other side of the cloud, he saw Tabatha meeting his snide defiance with… Sadness. Maybe pity. Just a soft frown, and a film over her clear blue eyes. They held that stare, both examining the other, before she pulled away to pick up the joint again. He looked down and released his anger through his nose like a last puff. 

“You… Are just as lovely as the day I met you, Tab. Inside and out.”

She was quiet for a minute. “You’re not much different. Just a little gray.”

He rubbed at his beard, as if he could trawl for silver. “You wish I was different.” She would be far from the first.

“I just wish we were both a little happier. But to be honest, I don’t think it’s all our fault. Look up, Toby.”

He lifted his chin and immediately met a waft of smoke, and a soft mouth against his.

“Bullying me is not gonna work. Ever. Now inhale.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.


	3. bookends p2.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But babe,” she said, “If you hate presidents, you’re gonna have a hell of a time working in politics.”
> 
> “That’s the idea, Claudia Jean. That’s the whole idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we still updating!!!!!!
> 
> toby remembers how his friendship with CJ began, and who he was when that happened. also, he finally says fuck. includes talk of praxis, pantomimed pissing, negging the white house and a slight opening of the closet.
> 
> thanks so much to anyone who's reading as i trundle along! kudos and comments are much appreciated.

The smoke filled Toby’s already-elastic lungs as he leaned back against the wall, laughing through the haze accumulating in his brain and in the dorm. “ _That_ was a distraction tactic, and! And! It was a bad one! God, I hope you don’t put your mouth on me during the debate.”

“Who says I’m even debating you? Are you telling me your categories?” CJ Cregg, a tall, fascinating freshman, was talking very close after shotgunning him. Allegedly, the room was noisy.

The debate teams from both City College of New York and UC Berkeley had spent the afternoon bar-crawling their way through Manhattan; the California students had bussed in a day ago for a national competition and already had steam to blow. The night owls among them huddled in Toby’s room to smoke afterward, and the crowd had split into sub-factions based on what they considered a party. A few were playing a small but raucous round of Kings, a few were chatting about lofty topics, seconds away from excusing themselves to make out. Toby and CJ were the last two remaining in what had been a robust circle of Truth or Dare.

“I’m not telling you shit, now go,” said Toby. “Truth or dare!”

“Truth,” said CJ.

“Okay… What’s your favorite song off _Rumours_.”

“That’s a stupid one! You trying to get to know me or something?”

“Maybe. Answer the question!”

“It’s ‘Don’t Stop,’ right, it has to be ‘Don’t Stop.’ No, actually you know what, it’s ‘Dreams.’”

“ _Really?_ ” Toby made a face at her. He didn’t really have a strong opinion about the tracks on _Rumours_ , although he had been listening to the album since it came out in February. He thought Stevie Nicks was a little grating, but he was smart enough to know that was the point. All he really wanted was a rise out of this girl, who was the most fun person he had met from any school in four years of college speech and debate. He had contemplated asking for her number several times over the evening, but he still couldn’t decide if he was attracted to her or just wanted to keep hearing her talk.

“Yeah really!” Her animation did not disappoint. “‘Don’t Stop’ is like, an instant classic, and ‘Dreams’.... ‘Dreams’ is a woman thing, I wouldn’t expect you to get it.”

“A woman thing?”

“Yeah. And no, I will not explain. I’m saving myself for the debate.”

“If only Fleetwood Mac was in the topics grab bag.”

“What’s yours.”

“‘The Chain.’”

“Dammit,” she said. “Dammit, that’s a good one.”

“Thank you.”

“Alright.” CJ took another quick hit. “Your turn.”

“Sure. Truth.”

“Who was the best President of the United States?”

“Easy,” said Toby. “None of them.”

“Woah!”

“There are _no_ completely good presidents, okay, every single POTUS has been a war criminal. Even sweet old JFK, God rest his soul.”

“George Washington?”

“Slaves. All the tricorn hats had ‘em.”

“Lincoln?”

“Didn’t care for abolition until it would win him his war.”

“FDR?!”

“Internment camps, CJ!”

“Okay! God! Everybody look at Trotsky over here, little Jewish Che Guevara.”

“I’d spit on any president who took part in Vietnam.”

“Eisenhower was a war hero! _”_

“CJ, there is _no_ such thing as a war hero. I’d do worse to Nixon. Kissinger. When those guys are dead, my first trip will be to their grave-”

“Toby! Don’t finish that sentence, my God.”  
He pantomimed a piss to suffice.

“Ugh,” said CJ. “You’re really high.”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit. How have you made it this far in Poli Sci?” She put her cheek in her hand, crossing her ankles behind her as she lay out on the floor. A kid tripped over her legs. She didn’t flinch.

“It’s only one of my majors.” He gave her a wry smile. “Truth or dare.”

“Truth.”

“What’s CJ stand for?”

Her thick lashes fluttered. “Claudia Jean.”

His smile widened. “That’s very cute.”

“Don’t patronize me. Just remember you have a dog name.”

“Claudia Jean… Apple pie…”

“Golden retriever!”

“Ask me another question.”

She paused, throwing their patter into a silence that made Toby shift. “...Are you gay?”

He blinked at her. Gave a short laugh. “What?”

“Wow, oh my God, you’re not. Okay, I figured you were gay when we started talking but I just realized like fifteen minutes ago that you might be hitting on me, and clearly-”

“CJ.”

“-You _are_ , and I’ve _totally_ been flirting with you back, but I thought it was safe because you were gay, which is shitty, so _very_ shitty-”

“CJ!”

“Yeah!” She frowned.

He took a second to look her in the eye, burying his own embarrassment, overwhelming it in the sadness of her. Every moment of their new friendship had been joyful, hysterical, verbal. But a moment of uncomfortable silence forced them to confront the downcast shape of one another’s faces. “Is there a reason you’re more comfortable talking to gay guys?”

“Yeah. They’re nice to me for free. So you are gay?”

“No.” He chewed his cheek, head frozen apart from darting eyes, small and dark. The desire for cathartic honesty pressed against his soft, stoned brain. In that hazy place, CJ Cregg from UC Berkeley was the most trustworthy person he had ever met. It felt to him as strong as prophecy. “But I’m… Not the straightest rake in the shed.”

“You’ve. Experimented.”

“Sure.”

“Who knows that?”

“The guys I’ve been with, and you.”

“Toby… You don’t even know me!”

“Yeah. Can I get your number?”

“Why?!”

“Cause I don’t wanna lose you as a friend when you go back to California, cause I think you’re a really special lady. Cause I’m stoned and I’m feeling very warm about a lot of things right now. Except for U.S. Presidents.”

She took her hand from her cheek and placed it on his. “Your whole team thinks you’re kind of an asshole.”

“I know that.”

“I think you’re really sweet.”

He smiled. She smiled back.

“But babe,” she said, “If you hate presidents, you’re gonna have a hell of a time working in politics.”

“That’s the idea, Claudia Jean. That’s the whole idea.”

 

\------

 

“Did you fall asleep?”

Toby blinked awake to fingers tapping on his chest. Tabatha was resting halfway on his lap, and the credits were rolling to a movie he didn’t remember turning on. The stench of weed was still potent. “I had a dream about CJ Cregg,” he said, rubbing his eyes under his glasses.

“Sorry. You were definitely getting kissed on, but it was just me.”

“It wasn’t like that!” He drew the tips of his fingers over her hair, trying to catch what his subconscious had given him before it slipped away. “I guess it wasn’t even a dream, just a very vivid memory.”

“What about?”

“When CJ and I met in college, the debate team from Berkeley traveled to compete in New York. God, I used to care about such different things when I was in school.”

“Losing one’s hair changes one.”

“Eh, by the time CJ met me my hairline was already packing its bags. But I was still protesting. Talking about stuff like direct action and prison abolition. God, I was so angry. Were you angry in college?”

“I’m a poet, Toby, of course I was angry. I’m still angry. Aren’t you still angry?”

He scratched at his cheek. “It’s like you said, like lots of people have said. I’m just sad.”

“Right. Because anger would constitute action.”

“Tabatha, what the fuck am I supposed to do!”  
“Lower your voice, for one.”

He took a breath. He watched her hand rise and fall with his chest. “I was _fired_ from the White House, you know that, right? The only reason I’m not a convicted felon with a prison rap is because I was pardoned. I’m no longer welcome at the table. I’m a leper to these people.”

“You were _swaddled_ in the world of the West Wing for eight years,” said Tabatha. “You had power to enact change within that system, and sometimes it let you do it, and sometimes it didn’t. I think you and all those good people became so involved in your duty to serve at the pleasure of the President that you forgot how powerless you could be if any number of people with more power than you so desired.” She sat up and took one of his hands in both of hers. “Toby, please consider what I’m saying. You’re so smart. You care so much. But you have all completely forgotten how to act radically. Without a Presidential seal.”

Toby’s mind buzzed loudly under her words, piecing them together with his memories from the White House -- contradictory ones, corroborating ones. He was groggy, but she was cutting through. She was making sense. It was unnerving. But she deserved better than a fear bite.

“Okay. Okay.” He squeezed her hand. “I can’t… Respond right now. But I hear you.”

She smiled at him. “That’s all I want.”

He pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her and resting his cheek on her head. His smart, incredible friend. He wasn’t sure why she was set on creating him as a vehicle of change -- the disgraced White House Director of Communications under a president who seemed all but irrelevant in the face of this year’s top candidates. He supposed that was the point. Bartlet was a pacifier in the mouths of liberal-minded people, allowing them to suck on certain “truths”: insanity and gross incompetence would never win a presidential nomination. The sacrosanct office would never be perverted. The will of the American people was such as that.

Toby didn’t know what Tabatha wanted him to do about it. He would have to decide whether or not she was truly right, and what it was he had to give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me a bread crumb

**Author's Note:**

> this is a quixotic quest but kudos and comments still rule!!!!


End file.
